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Date:      Thu, 04 Oct 2007 12:11:56 +0000
From:      bob.middaugh@comcast.net (Bob Middaugh)
To:        Kevin Kinsey <kdk@daleco.biz>, FreeBSD <questions@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: Advice on "new" hardware.... (long post)
Message-ID:  <100420071211.22799.4704D88C000AADF30000590F220075078408099A0E0B0B0703D20D010D@comcast.net>

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 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Kevin Kinsey <kdk@daleco.biz>
> Hello,
> 
> Out of necessity, I recently replaced my workstation motherboard
> (old one was apparently suffering a breakdown in the IDE controller
> chip).  Funds being rather low, I opted for a fairly low priced
> "combo" deal from a well-known online retailer.  I may be 
> regretting that now.
> 
> I'm having a few ACPI related error messages, some problems with
> USB, Xorg doesn't look too pretty, and sound isn't running.
> Booting with ACPI off doesn't seem to help, and makes USB
> worse.
> 
> BIOS date is July of this year, and so far I'm not actually
> sure were to look for any update (appears to be a PcChips
> board [yeah, I know]) and I wonder if there'd be an update
> anyway, so soon.
> 
> The main ACPI problem that is evident is simply the error
> message:  "acpi_tz0: _TMP value is absurd, ignored (-269.2C)".
> That can be ignored, but I'm guessing that most of the other
> problems are probably related to FBSD and this board's ACPI
> tables not "playing nice" with each other.  Any chance at
> all I'm right?
> 
> Sound problem is the biggie, and it seems to be here:
> 
> # cat /dev/sndstat
> FreeBSD Audio Driver (newpcm)
> Installed devices:
> pcm0: <SiS 7012> at io 0xd800, 0xd400 irq 18 bufsz 16384 kld snd_ich (1p/1r/1v 
> channels duplex default)
> 
> # dmesg | grep pcm
> pcm0: <SiS 7012> port 0xd800-0xd8ff,0xd400-0xd47f irq 18 at device 2.7 on pci0
> pcm0: AC97 reset timed out.
> pcm0: <Analog Devices AD1888 AC97 Codec>
> pcm0: ac97 codec reports dac not ready
> pcm0: ac97 link rate calibration timed out after 1868021 us
> 
> And this is logged by the kernel after "play foo.wav":
> 
>    kernel: pcm0:virtual:0:dsp0.2: play interrupt timeout, channel dead
> 
> The above are "symptoms" (along with the fact that there's
> no sound); is it likely that the problem is related to this?:
> 
> # pciconf -lv | grep -A4 pcm
> pcm0@pci0:2:7:  class=0x040100 card=0x18801019 chip=0x70121039 rev=0xa0 hdr=0x00
>     vendor     = 'Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS)'
>     device     = 'SiS7013 PCI Audio Accelerator'
>     class      = multimedia
>     subclass   = audio
> 
> It's not really a 7012, but a 7013 chip.  /sys/dev/sound/pci/ich.c indicates
> that the 7012 "needs special handling" and that the "7012 register isn't
> like the standard ICH".  I'm guessing that either the 7013 *is* more like
> the standard ICH, or else it's different even than the 7012, because it doesn't
> seem to wanna play right with pcm(4) when it thinks it's a 7012....
> 
> The USB problem so far isn't a biggie; it's worst when I boot
> without ACPI; then I can't get USB to function at all (use it
> for the mouse, mainly, and can work around that with a PS/2
> mouse, I guess).
> 
> So, is there any hope for this hardware?  I could try HEAD, I guess,
> but it doesn't appear that any work's been done in ICH on HEAD for
> 2 months or so (I'm currently running STABLE from yesterday).  What
> about the ACPI?  Should I beg over on hackers@?  Anybody wanna donate
> a nice modern mobo set?  [</evilgrin>, just had to ask].
> 
> Thanks for any insight!
> 
> Kevin Kinsey
> -- 

The only thing I can say is that I had a pc chips board in the early 90's, for about 5 years and they were pretty good about BIOS updates.  If I remember right, I think in that time they released at least 3 for the board I had.  

You could try checking here:

http://www.pcchipsusa.com/PCCWebSite/Downloads/Category_Download.aspx?MenuID=6&LanID=2





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